Posted on 03/10/2004 7:40:40 AM PST by BenLurkin
LANCASTER - Pain and trauma were constant themes in Helen Carreon's life. In the end, it may have been the pain that killed her. The 30-year-old mother of six was found dead in her Lancaster home on Elm Avenue the morning of Feb. 28, the victim of what appears to be an accidental pain medication overdose.
The last two weeks of Carreon's life were a series of tragedies, beginning with a gunshot wound on Valentine's Day. The bullet, which pierced her leg, was allegedly fired by her jealous boyfriend, Byron Matheu, 25, a parolee and reputed gang member. Three days later authorities say Matheu murdered Carreon's neighbor in front of her children. Within days, Carreon was dead, too, a tragic ending to a life lived the hard way.
Nothing ever had come easy for Carreon. Kicked out of her mother's house at 12 after becoming pregnant, she had six children - all girls - by the time she was 22. She battled substance addiction, poverty, jail time and at least one abusive relationship. The father of her oldest children - ages 18, 14 and 13 - was murdered several years ago in Arizona. Her three youngest children, two 9-year-old twins and a 10-year-old, were living with their father in Riverside at the time of her death. Friends said she missed them terribly and hadn't seen them since Christmas.
Although toxicology results won't be back for several weeks from the coroner's office, Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators suspect medication to numb the pain may have ended her life. A ruling on the death will not be made until all tests are back, Coroner's spokesman David Campbell said.
Those who loved Carreon grieve her loss, while at the same time marveling at her resilience.
"Every time she got knocked down, she would just dust herself off and get back up," said Annette Banks, a close friend. "She was the heart of her family and the strength of her friends. I don't know how she did it."
Despite the problems in her life, Carreon was remembered as a happy person with a contagious laugh who went out of her way to help people, especially young teenagers. She loved to read and was known to take long baths. She couldn't wait to have grandchildren so she could spoil them, Banks said.
Her life was filled with struggles, some of them her own doing, loved ones acknowledge, and sometimes she turned to drugs when the pain overwhelmed her.
"But we loved her for who she was," Banks said.
As a single, struggling mother, Banks said, her friend longed for love and acceptance. She chose the wrong man in Matheu, and that proved to be her downfall, she said.
"It was a bad relationship," Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detective Brian Steinwand said. "He was abusive to her."
Carreon and Matheu had been dating about 2 years, according to Carreon's oldest daughter, Kat.
"At first he was real nice to us, but then he started hitting my mom and we didn't like him no more," she said.
Matheu didn't live with the family, but he did stay there from time to time, Steinwand said. On Valentine's Day he was at the house when he and Carreon got into an argument and he accused her of cheating on him.
"He apparently pulls out a gun, and the gun goes off," Steinwand said. "She said he didn't mean to shoot her."
The bullet hit her in the leg, but Carreon took care of the wound herself. She told her children she had been playing with a gun and accidently shot herself, Kat said.
"She didn't tell us. If I had known, I would have gone after him with a baseball bat," she said.
Detectives learned of the shooting Feb. 17 while questioning Carreon about her neighbor's murder. They saw bandages on her leg and sent her to the hospital, Steinwand said.
On that day, Matheu was at the house looking for trouble, Steinwand said. He got into a fight with Arthur Morua, a neighbor and a close friend of the family.
"They started fighting, (Matheu) was losing the fight and he got one of his friends to get in there," Steinwand said. "Then, while his friend was kind of holding the guy, he gets up off the ground and shoots him in the head."
Kat and some of the other children witnessed the execution.
"Arthur was like an uncle to me," Kat said. "He always helped us out. He was just like my mom."
Kat and the others cooperated with detectives as witnesses.
"They're good kids," Steinwand said. "I feel for the kids."
Matheu is still at large, but detectives have two alleged accomplices, Richard Garcia, 24, and Rafael Espinoza, 25, in custody. News of their arrests within days of the murder was greeted happily by Carreon and her children, but another tragedy was coming.
The morning of Feb. 28, Carreon's 21-year-old sister Jodi entered Carreon's bedroom and found her lifeless body in her bed.
The family is now reeling with the sudden loss of two loved ones.
"I can't believe that we lost two great people two weeks apart," Kat said, adding that she doesn't know what the family will do next.
Money is tight, and the family doesn't have the funds for a funeral or even day-to-day expenses.
"People tell us to call if there's anything we need help with, so when we need food or help with something, I call them," she said.
Kat, who was not attending high school at the time of her mother's death, had plans of joining the Job Corps. Those plans are now on hold as she and her Aunt Jodi seek custody of her younger siblings.
A donation fund for funeral expenses and daily supplies for the children has been set up under Kat's full name, Kathleen Carreon, at Washington Mutual Bank.
In the meantime, Kat says she will use her mother's strength as an example in the trying times the family now faces.
"Even though my mom was young, she was very, very wise," Kat said. "My mom raised me so well, I think I'm stronger. We can't stop life; we have to continue for our mom."
There is a complete collapse in what people understand to be 'normal behavior' in some parts of America. It IS dysfunctional, but it replicates itself from generation to generation due in no small part to the layers of handouts the government provides that permit the dysfunctional elements to propagate (and actually grow in numbers!)
Promiscuity is not considered a mental illness today as it was when I took psychology courses in college. (Of course back then homosexuality was still understood to be a mental illness)
Nothing ever had come easy for Carreon. Kicked out of her mother's house at 12 after becoming pregnant, she had six children - all girls - by the time she was 22. She battled substance addiction, poverty, jail time and at least one abusive relationship....
it sounds like she made her own bed.
Its' somebody's fault when a 12 yro. gets pregnant....it used to be called rape....
I hate to tell you this, baby girl, but your mom made bad choices time after time after time until those choices killed her. That isn't wisdom, it is stupidity.
My guess is that she was pregnant at 14 or so and never got kicked out of anywhere. And then just continued to get pregnant. On social assisstance.
She was 30, her oldest daughter is 18. You do the math.
flame away....
How do you admire someone who's entire life was one self-imposed hardship after another? At some point, maybe after the third or fourth kid, you'd think she would've seen some correlation between a hard life and bad decision making.
Another good point. The folks in these situations think very small, and measure themselves and each other against very low standards.
Sorry, honey. I know you loved your mom, but she was clearly not wise. I'm drawing a blank, what is the word for 'opposite of wise'?
This thread should serve as a useful forum for addressing conservative solutions to the societal problems highlighted in this woman's story.
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